Entries from November 2007 ↓

If the Melbourne Victory reach the finals of the A-League, they might be in the running for a spot at the first-ever Pan-Pacific Championship in February. Four teams will compete in the tournament, to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii.

One Australian team will play the MLS Cup Champion, the Houston Dynamo, while David Beckham and the LA Galaxy will face the J-League’s Gamba Osaka.

Details on how the Australian team is selected are somewhat vague. The A-League website states that “an Australian side that will qualify on the basis of results from the Hyundai A-League finals series.” You’d assume the Grand Final winner gets through, right?

But the A-League Grand Final is to be played on the 24th of February – a day after the Pan-Pacific Championship kicks off. As a result, the loser of the preliminary final will get to compete in Hawaii.

Pretty sweet consolation prize, if you ask me.

Three weeks ago, under the new coaching of David Mitchell, you would have called the Perth Glory a resurgent force. Mitchell replaced the out-of-favour Ron Smith and within days the Glory sealed their first win in a year – a triumphant 4-1 victory away over the Newcastle Jets.

But the glory was short-lived. A loss at home to the Central Coast Mariners and a draw in Adelaide have kept the club at the bottom of the ladder, languishing 3 points behind the Wellington Phoenix and a formidable 9 points outside the top 4.

Still, Glory fans will be hopeful of seeing their team win at home for the first time since November 26 last year. But to do so, they will have to overcome a Melbourne Victory struggling for a spot in the finals. Continue reading →

With the A-League starting its final 7 rounds this week, it’s a good time to take a look at how Melbourne’s fate is panning out alongside its competitors. I’ve heard plenty of pessimistic talk from Melbourne fans recently, but a cursory look at how other teams are performing should give Victory supporters plenty of cause for hope.

It’s a very tight league.

1. Central Coast Mariners
Four points separate Central Coast from the Queensland Roar. It’s a strong, but breakable, lead. From a strictly statistical point of view, the Mariners’ strength has been their defense, which has let through only 9 goals this season. But with strikers like John Aloisi and Sasho Petrovski, and scoring midfielders like Tom Pondeljak, Adam Kwasnik and John Hutchinson, opposition teams will have their work cut for them all across the park. The Mariners are a lethal team at the moment and I would not bet against them finishing top of the ladder. Continue reading →

Apparently Lynch was missing, so the two Victory stars decided to interview each other. Topics include the Phoenix match, the upcoming match against Perth, Muscat’s send-off and the Socceroos World Cup qualification draw.

Check it out.

Another week, another red card. It seems Melbourne struggles to get through a game without one these days and constantly pays the price.

A small crowd, by Melbourne standards, turned up to see Victory take on Wellington Phoenix at home for the first time. This was no great surprise based on Melbourne’s dismal season so far, but also because of a far greater contest reaching a conclusion at the same time – the federal election.

A good selection of players were available for this match, the most prominent exceptions Milicevic and Piorkowski, both players with long-term injuries and Joe Keenan, who served out his last week of suspension. So, at last Melbourne looked like having what could be described as a near-ideal line-up. Perhaps the greatest surprise was to see Ryall missing out on a squad spot, opting for Evan Berger instead. Interesting to say the least, because as Josh pointed out on his blog, Ryall was flown back with great urgency from his Australian under-20s duties several weeks ago. That said, I thoroughly understand including Vasilevski in the starting line-up, owing to excellent performances in the previous matches. I would however have much preferred to see him contribute in the midfield rather than in defence. His crosses have been the most dangerous component of his game and playing as a right back just doesn’t give him enough opportunity to provide those crosses. While I have great respect for Caceres’ talents, I rate Vasilevski higher. My preference would have been for Vasilevski to play in the midfield, Caceres to be on the bench and Ryall to be in defence. Unfortunately I don’t call the shots. Continue reading →

Melbourne Victory 1, Wellington Phoenix 1

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fA7XQpo1rc[/youtube]

The Melbourne Victory is down, but not out. Three points separate them from 3rd and 4th placed Adelaide United and Newcastle Jets. A stretch of wins can and will propel the Victory into serious final contention, with a decent shot at a top 2 position.

Over the past month, Melbourne could have won each of its games – if it had taken its chances. But alas, let’s leave that behind us. Continue reading →

“Deja vu” was the phrase used earlier this week in The World Game to describe the Melbourne Victory’s season. Quite right. Those who remember the first season will remember how Melbourne started out with a series of draws and a loss, before finally nailing its first win in an Olympic Park match with the Newcastle Jets. It followed this up with 3 consecutive wins against the Central Coast Mariners (1 – 2), the New Zealand Knights (3 – 0) and then – the most memorable moment of that season – Sydney FC (5 – 0).

But then they started losing. They pulled in a couple draws and 3 wins (twice against New Zealand, and once against Queensland), but lost the other 8 games of the remaining season .

By the end of the season, the only comfort beleaguered Victory fans could hold onto was the fact that their team didn’t finish bottom of the ladder. The Knights took that honour.

There were cries back then for heads to roll, and many did. Players like Andy Vlahos, Ricky Diaco and Carl Recchia lost their contracts; others, like Michael Ferrante and Vince Lia, kept their spot at the club but didn’t get any game time during season 2. But there were others who stayed, despite the protests of many fans. Daniel Allsopp was one. And Ernie Merrick was another.

Of course, both Allsopp and Merrick rewarded fans and club with an incredible season last year. The Victory’s second season was pretty much as good as it gets. Season 1 seemed a dark, distant memory. Continue reading →

This post marks the completion of an epic series of Melbourne Victory player profiles.

Do you remember this game?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdkVfbZJAL0[/youtube]

When: September 2, 2006

Where: The Telstra Dome

The result: Melbourne Victory 3, Sydney FC 2

It was only the second game of the season, but the Victory was already promising a grand season. The week before, Melbourne had beaten Adelaide United by 2 goals – a particularly encouraging result considering that they had lost every match against Adelaide before then by a 1 – 0 scoreline. The Sydney game was also impressive for the record crowd that packed the Telstra Dome (just under 40,000).

But perhaps the most promising thing about that night was Danny Allsopp. Continue reading →

“We simply were not at the races” Victory’s stand-in captain Grant Brebner said. Sad, but true.
Another disappointing match and one that comes at time when many fans will start to feel the season is fast moving beyond reach. The loss to Central Coast could be disregarded as an unfortunate series of events. Last week’s match against Sydney was tight and by all accounts one that we just as easily could/(should?) have won. But this one just never looked right. It was the chance to get right back into the thick of it and everything fell apart. Where has it all gone wrong? Continue reading →